Alternatives to Blue Apron: This is a list of meal kit companies, information about each service, and their coupon codes. Try them all and find your favorite.
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I have been trying different meal kit companies for a while and it’s something I really enjoy. It’s fun to see which kits are best for my family and which might be better for other families.
I wanted to give you a quick database of meal kit companies so you can access the coupon codes and serving price information for each service. This will hopefully let you try them all yourself, or rule out which services might not work for you. I am going to share the prices that these services are at the time I’m writing this, but please leave a comment if you notice prices have changed.
I’m going to list some meal kit companies that I haven’t tried yet and I’ll come back and fill in info as I try them. But at least you’ll be able to access information and coupon codes for each!
For each meal kit I’ve tried, I’ll talk about the following:
- Description
- Taste
- Prep Time
- Coupon Codes
- Cost
- Is the Kit Allergy Friendly?
Another thing you might be interested in is some of my additional posts about using a meal kit service.
How to Prep Meal Kit Meals FASTER | How to Organize Your Meal Delivery Service Meals
Want to save money and do your own shopping? You can try Plate Joy instead. Plate Joy helps you meal plan, gives you the shopping list for the week, and you can either shop yourself or send the list to Instantcart for delivery!
Hope this post is helpful!
Meal Kit Companies that are Good Alternatives to Blue Apron
I’m going to start with Blue Apron, in case you haven’t used them, just so you have a comparison for the other services. Here’s a list of companies I’m including so you can skip to the ones you want to read about, if you prefer:
Table of contents
Blue Apron Meal Kits
Description of Blue Apron’s Service
Healthy meals that focus on using a variety of unique and farm fresh ingredients. Helpful menu cards allow you to replicate the recipes at home if you desire (if you can find the ingredients).
How Does Blue Apron Food Taste?
Excellent. I’m frequently impressed with the recipes and find that they’re often better than what I might order at a restaurant.
Prep Time for Blue Apron
Long.
Cost of Blue Apron
This meal delivery service runs $9.99 a serving for the 2 person meals or $8.99 a serving for the family meals. If you get (3) 2 person meals, the cost is $59.94 a week. If you want family meals, they run $71.92 for 2 recipes a week.
Coupon Code for Blue Apron: Click here to get $60 Off First 3 Boxes
Is Blue Apron Allergy Friendly?
My one issue with Blue Apron is that they DO offer allergy information but it’s sort of buried in the nutrition info on the website only (it’s not accessible at this time on the app). I recently discovered that eggs make me sick and it’s sometimes difficult to find meals without them. It takes me a lot longer to pick out my meals now and some weeks I can’t find 2-3 meals that I like that don’t have egg in them. I’ve suggested to them that they should improve this so hopefully we’ll see those changes implemented in the future.
Additional Comments
We’ve been using Blue Apron for a while (over a year!) and I have more in-depth posts on it here: How to Use Your Blue Apron Trial.
Terra’s Kitchen Meal Kits
Description of Terra’s Kitchen
This meal delivery services comes convenient prepped for most of the ingredients, making it faster to cook. It’s also more kid friendly than some meal services. There’s a large selection of meals you can choose and the meals are organized for various dietary needs including: Whole30, Paleo, Low Calorie, Gluten-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan, Weight Loss, Dairy Free, and Low Carb.
How Do Terra’s Kitchen Meals Taste?
If you’re a meat and potatoes sort of person, Terra’s Kitchen might be a great fit. It was more plain food than Blue Apron, but this made it really great for picky children- and adults.
Prep Time for Terra’s Kitchen
Short
Cost of Terra’s Kitchen
This meal delivery service runs $10.99 or more per serving, depending on what you choose for your box.
Coupon Code for Terra’s Kitchen
Sign up and get $75 off your three orders
Is Terra’s Kitchen Allergy Friendly?
The allergen information is easy to find and at the top of the recipe page for each meal, as well as the type of protein, and what vitamins the meal is a good or excellent source of (ie. Vitamin C, Iron, etc).
Additional Comments
My favorite thing about this service was that the food was already cut up. The packaging went back to Terra’s Kitchen which was nice because it was less waste to worry about. Read more about our experience with Terra’s Kitchen here.
Real Eats Meal Kit
Description of Real Eats
The Real Eats meal delivery service provides sous vide cooked meals in individual bags. They’re already cooked so you just need to reheat them in a pot of boiling water for 3-6 minutes. It’s really convenient and the meals are healthy. The meals aren’t dry because the sous vide bags help keep in the moisture.
How Do Real Eats Meals Taste?
Good. It’s served in plastic like you’d get from a freezer meal, but it’s fresh- unlike a freezer meal- and doesn’t taste like plastic. If you’re familiar with sous vide cooking and make your own meals in one, it’s similar. You DO NOT need a sous vide machine to cook these though because they’re already precooked.
Prep Time for Real Eats
Zero prep and cook time is 6 minutes max.
Cost for Real Eats
Each “meal” is for one person so you can make different items for each person in your family if desired. It’s convenient if you have young kids and want them to split one meal. Keep in mind that a 12 meal week is enough food for 2 people for 6 days or enough food for 4 people for 3 days.
This meal delivery service has several meal options for the week:
- 4 Meals: $14/meal, $56/week
- 6 Meals: $13.50/meal, $81/week
- 8 Meals: $13/meal, $104/week
- 12 Meals: $12.50/meal, $150/week
Coupon Code for Real Eats
Is Real Eats Allergy Friendly?
I’m so sorry, I totally forgot to add those details when I first wrote this post and added this company. To my recollection, the meals are simple enough that you don’t have a lot of hidden ingredients, but I can’t recall the checkout process.
Additional Comments
Delivered via Fedex. There’s a lot of plastic waste with this service which I didn’t love. The downfall to this service is that you won’t get fresh salad or anything that’s uncooked/raw. But the convenience of it was AMAZING. If they sold family meals in one big bag, I’d be more likely to order again. If the packaging could be sent back and reused, I’d be 100% on board.
Plated Meal Kits
Description of Plated
Foodies will like this meal service, which focuses on exposing you to as many ingredients as humanly possible in just a few meals a week.
How Do Plated Meals Taste?
These kits tasted good. I prefer Blue Apron meals, but I only tried two weeks of Plated. My stepsister and her family love Plated.
Prep Time for Plated
Long. They make a point of mentioning how many different ingredients you try in one week.
Cost of Plated
This meal delivery service runs $119.40 for 4 servings per night and 3 nights per week. This is around $9.95/serving.
Coupon Code for Plated
Coming soon!
Is Plated Allergy Friendly?
Sorry, this is another one that I don’t remember!
Additional Comments
N/A
Dinnerly Meal Kits
Description for Dinnerly
Recipes and ingredients delivered to your home that are affordable and simple. They’re geared to be picky people pleasers from what I can see.
How do Dinnerly Meals Taste?
Decent, yet not too complicated.
Prep Time for Dinnerly
The meals had fewer ingredients, but still had some cooking involved. It’s not bad for prep at all. My big peeve with this service was that their recipe cards are online- I LOVE how eco-friendly it is, but I HATED it because my phone would always flip off while I was completing steps. It’s difficult to turn my phone on repeatedly while also cutting meat and other ingredients. There were also some recipes that I messed up because the instructions weren’t clear.
Cost of Dinnerly
This meal delivery service runs $59.88 for the family plan for 3 meals a week. I thought the meals were substantial enough that the price was a good deal.
Coupon Code For Dinnerly
$5 Serving Meals with Dinnerly
Is Dinnerly Allergy Friendly?
I didn’t find that their ordering process was allergy-friendly. While the allergens ARE listed, you need to click through to each meal to see if it includes the allergen. So you need to dig through 14 recipes to see which has your allergen. THAT SAID, each meal says on the main menu if it has gluten or dairy. If those are your issue, you’re good. If you have an allergy to egg, you need to expect to spend more time picking out meals.
Also, I ended up forgetting to cancel an order and they sent me 3 meals… they were all good, but TWO used egg. I managed to substitute to make the meals work. But I noticed that they don’t list egg as an allergen for those meals… probably because THEIR ingredients don’t include egg. Which is fine except for the fact that people need to make the recipe work without egg and no alternatives are suggested.
Additional Comments
You’ll need to pick up some ingredients for the meals. For example, they don’t seem to ship eggs with their meals.
Hello Fresh Meal Kits
Description of Hello Fresh
Locally sourced food delivered to your door. Seems similar to Blue Apron in respect to focusing on locally sourced food, but more like Terra’s Kitchen in that the food seems pretty ‘meat and potatoes.’
How do Hello Fresh Meals Taste
TBD
Prep Time for Hello Fresh
TBD
Cost of Hello Fresh
This meal delivery service runs $119.88 for 3 meals per week for 4 people (12 servings) or $9.99 per serving. There are extra charges for some meals.
Coupon Code for Hello Fresh
Is Hello Fresh Allergy Friendly?
This meal delivery service seems really allergy friendly which I appreciate. When I put in my order, I was able to select my food choices from the main menu without needing to click additional nutritional info.
Additional Comments
I like that it has some ‘dinner 2 lunch’ meals where there are enough leftovers and extra items to make lunch with the next day- this costs extra though!
Gobble Delivery Service
Description of Gobble
Dinner kits that focus on providing 15 minute meals. The food comes prepped and ready to be cooked in only one pan.
Taste: TBD
Prep Time: TBD
Cost: Meals are $12 per person, Salads are $6 per person, Sides are $2-5 per person.
Coupon code: Get 6 Meals for $36
Additional Comments: The allergen information is very easy to find when selecting your food! It seems rather expensive and their premium meals are quite a bit more expensive if you want to get one of those.
Sun Basket Meal Delivery Service
Description: Focused on healthy cooking made easy with only organic produce. They offer gluten-free, lean, vegetarian, Paleo, diabetes-friendly, and more menus that are tailored to different dietary needs.
Taste: TBD
Prep Time: TBD
Cost: Three recipes per week for 2 or 4 people runs $11.99 per serving.
Coupon Code: Coming soon!
Additional Comments: We haven’t tried this service yet, but it’s definitely one I plan to try after I try out HelloFresh!
Home Chef Meal Delivery Service
Description: This meal service appears to be focused on variety, value, and saving money.
Taste: TBD
Prep Time: TBD
Cost: The site claims that meals start at $7.99, but doesn’t specify how many servings that is… you need to sign up to find out. I’ll let you know after I make my first order.
Coupon Code: Coming soon!
Additional Comments: We haven’t tried this service yet, but it’s definitely one I plan to try after I try out Sun Basket!
Schwann’s Meal Delivery Service
Description: This is more of a freezer food delivery service. It’s easy to prep and you can stuff your freezer full of their foods. They have a huge list of foods available.
Taste: It’s what you would expect from the freezer food section of the grocery store. Nothing spectacular.
Prep Time: Very easy to prep. Sometimes the meals take a while to cook, but they only need to be shoved in the oven for an hour.
Cost: This meal delivery service runs $12.99 for a bag of food that serves 3 or thereabouts, depending on your meal choice.
Coupon Code: N/A … They run specials on their site frequently, but I don’t have a link with any particular deals to share at this time.
Additional Comments: This is not the healthiest delivery service ever, but it’s super easy to cook which is nice. The taste isn’t going to work for the foodies (don’t bother), but it’s great for busy parents. The people delivering the food are BY FAR the nicest folks I’ve ever met… the guy who delivers our meals reminds me of the milk man in those old TV shows. The nice thing about the service is that you don’t get meals every week if you forget to cancel an order. They might pop by and ask if you want anything, but there’s no huge commitment. I prefer to order a bunch at once, then go a while between orders.
Meal Kits for Special Diets
There are several options for meal kits for people with special diets. This was of interest to me because I have a family member who has diabetes and I should be following a FODMAP diet. It’s REALLY hard to cook for yourself when you have to follow a strict diet and hate cooking. These meal kits allow you some quick and easy meals.
Here’s a couple meal kits I was checking out. I haven’t ordered through them yet so I can’t testify to their quality.
MyDietToGo: This meal delivery service offers meals for a balanced diet, diabetics, ketocarb30, and vegetarians. These meals are precooked and can be heated up in a microwave. Get 10% off any plan if you use this link.
Martha’s Senior Gourmet: These kits look really affordable and they offer a number of options for diets… they have menus for diabeties, renal, renal diabetic, ultra low sodium/congestive heart failure, vitamin K restrictive, gluten sensitive, dairy free, pureed meals, low carb, and vegetarian. They ship meals, but for the most part they only deliver to parts of California, Arizona, and Florida.
Epicured: This company offers a number of diets, including low FODMAP diet foods. Use this link and the coupon code “WELCOME20” to get $20 off your order of $50 or more.
Experimenting with Meal Kits
I hope this was helpful for you. It’s been fun to try out each service and pick the ones we love. I am really organized and make sure to keep track so I don’t have ten services delivering in one week. When a service doesn’t work out for us, we cancel it. I’ve tried a few services that just weren’t working.
Overall, I think these services are super helpful to make cooking and meal planning easier- tasks that I don’t love. I love eating good food and I love exposing my family to a variety of foods though so these services are convenient.
My 10 month old has tried some foods in his life that I’m just now trying for the first time at 37 years old. It’s pretty neat. My 4 and 6 year olds are learning to try new things and it’s been fun to expose them to these foods, even if they sometimes make faces and give us a hard time.
Occasionally I have my kids help with prepping the meals- and sometimes my husband watches the kids, I turn on music or an audiobook, and I take my time prepping dinner because it’s a blissful 30-60 minutes of quiet time for me.
The reality is that some services work for some people and some work for others. I can’t say which is best for YOU. We have family and friends who have completely different favorite services.
Let me know if you think of any services I should add to my list!
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brandon
Saturday 30th of June 2018
Good information. I hope people find this useful.